Opinion: Australian Government Swimming in Circles When It Comes to Indigenous Affairs

BLACKCURRENT: Lost in a sea of d-words
Opinion by Amy McQuire
National Indigenist Times, ISSUE 181 - 09 Jul 2009

ISSUE 181, July 9, 2009: AMY MCQUIRE laments that Australian governments keep swimming in circles when it comes to Indigenous affairs.

Devastating (Rudd).

Distressing (Gillard).

Disappointing (Abbott).

The three politicians above all used adjectives beginning with 'd' to describe this year's annual Productivity Commission report into Indigenous disadvantage. I have one too: disgusting.

Of course, it is not directed at the report, but rather at our nation's leaders.

For what word is there to describe how those in power repetitiously indulge in lamentations on the plight of Indigenous Australia, and then do nothing about it?

Last Thursday marked the Council of Australian Government (COAG)'s meeting in Darwin.

It was touted that the meeting would place Indigenous affairs on top of the list of priorities, and it did. But by far the most interesting news to come out of the meeting was the Commission's report.

It found the following:

INFANT/YOUNG CHILD MORTALITY: Indigenous infants and young children are still 2-3 times more likely to die than other children, despite improvements in infant mortality rates (young child mortality rates remain constant).

READING, WRITING, NUMERACY: No change in Indigenous student performance over the past 10 years. No closing of gaps between black and white students.

YEAR 12: While the proportion of Indigenous year 12 graduates has increased from 31 to 36 percent between 2001-2006, the fact the non-Indigenous rate also increased from 68 to 74 percent means the gap remains the same.

UNEMPLOYMENT: The Indigenous employment to population ratio has increased to 48 percent as of 2006, but the gap is still the same, as the non-Indigenous ratio has also increased.

CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT: Indigenous children are now 4-6 times more likely to be abused or neglected than non-Indigenous children.

IMPRISONMENT/JUVENILE DETENTION: Imprisonment rate increased by 46 percent for Indigenous women and by 27 percent for Indigenous men between 2000-2008.

Indigenous adults are 13 times more likely to be imprisoned in 2008. The Indigenous juvenile rate increased by 27 percent between 2001-2007.

Indigenous juveniles were 28 times more likely to be detained than their non-Indigenous counterparts.

For once, news.com.au decided to give an important issue precedence over their usual coverage of female body parts and crazed criminals, placing the story at the top of their website.

The Australian newspaper, who to its credit often keeps up with Indigenous affairs (although, controversially) also gave the report prominence online.

All stories included comments by the Prime Minister, who called the report "devastating" and said it meant "we have to redouble and treble our efforts to make an impact".

Thanks Mr Rudd. It's nice to see that you have reacted with such passion to the statistics.

Except, the report is hardly an 'expose'. It says nothing new.

The report is released every second year with almost identical results, and every second year prompts a similar reaction from politicians and media.

Take this news story I found on NIT online. It is from June 2005:

"The report into Aboriginal disadvantage released early today backs the Howard government's decision to make dramatic changes to Indigenous affairs in order to achieve better outcomes, Indigenous Affairs Minister Amanda Vanstone has claimed.

'Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2005' from the Productivity Commission reveals Indigenous Australians have made no improvements in all the key social and economic areas in the past two years.

It also found that between 1994 and 2002, rates for victims of crime, child protection notifications and imprisonment worsened.

In response, Senator Vanstone said she planned to ask state and territory governments what they were doing about continuing violence within Indigenous communities."

Four years on, and the 2009 report confirmed that there are still hardly any improvements for Indigenous people, and Indigenous incarceration rates continue to skyrocket.

Two years ago, NIT again filed a story (June 2007): "Poverty and unemployment have been blamed for a dramatic rise in the number of Indigenous people in Australian jails."

A new report reveals a 32 percent jump in the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders imprisoned between 2000 and 2006. The bleak statistics are contained in the latest Council of Australian Government-commissioned report into Indigenous disadvantage [the Productivity Commission]."

Of course, the Minister for Indigenous Affairs at the time - Mal Brough - did the politically smart thing. He just blamed it on ATSIC.

"ATSIC was an abject failure... it was almost a fraud perpetrated on the Indigenous people and the Australian population," Mr Brough told ABC radio, acknowledging that although John Howard had been in government for 11 years, blackfellas were still to blame.

Although Mr Rudd is slightly more astute to realize ATSIC had nothing to do with entrenched Indigenous disadvantage, I doubt he also has the political will to make the changes Indigenous Australia so desperately needs.

His first report card on Indigenous disadvantage, which he promised on the first sitting day of Parliament each year and which was he delivered a month late, made no mention of any real progress government was making.

Instead, the report was full of rhetoric and spin, and simply recycled tired press releases stuffed with self-praise for apologising to the Stolen Generations.

If a government has to ride on the coat-tails of its first and only major movement in Indigenous affairs to justify its will in other areas of policy, then it really isn't taking many steps forward.

The Rudd government says it is going to 'reset the relationship' with Indigenous Australians, but its insistence on the NT intervention; on compulsorily acquiring the Alice Springs town camps; on linking welfare quarantines to school attendance; on refusing to boost Aboriginal legal aid wile incarceration rates sky-rocket; on refusing to provide reparations to the Stolen Generations; on scrapping CDEP regionally; on linking housing reform to land tenure while opposing against it in Opposition; on axing bilingual education; on refusing to properly support the homelands and outstations; shows that Mr Rudd is not being truthful when he says he will 'double' or 'treble' his government's efforts.

Australian governments, Labor and Liberal, are not just devastated, distressed, disappointed and disgusting.

They are also delusional.

blackcurrent@nit.com.au

* Amy McQuire is a Canberra-based journalist with the National Indigenous Times. She is of Darumbal and South Sea Islander descent, and hails from Rockhampton in Central Queensland. Amy is the current National NAIDOC Young Apprentice of the Year.
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U.S. Position On UNDRIP Under Review By Obama Administration

U.S.: Obama Urged to Sign Native Rights Declaration

By Haider Rizvi
IPS - Inter Press Service


UNITED NATIONS, May 6 (IPS) - The United States is considering whether to endorse a major U.N. General Assembly resolution calling for the recognition of the rights of the world’s 370 million indigenous peoples over their lands and resources."

The position on [this issue] is under review," Patrick Ventrell, spokesperson for the U.S. mission to the U.N., told IPS about the Barack Obama administration’s stance on the non-binding U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Approved by a vast majority of the U.N. member states in September 2007, the General Assembly resolution on the declaration was rejected by the George W. Bush administration over indigenous leaders’ argument that no economic or political power has the right to exploit their resources without seeking their "informed consent."

Three other "settler nations" of European descent, namely Canada, New Zealand and Australia, also voted against the declaration, which states that indigenous peoples have the right to maintain their cultures and remain on their land.

However, last month, the new left-leaning government in Canberra reversed its position, announcing support for the declaration.

"We show our respect for indigenous peoples," said Jenny Macklin, a member of the Australian parliament. "We show our faith in a new era of relations between states and indigenous peoples in good faith."

The new government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has also offered an apology to the indigenous communities who suffered at the hands of European settlers for decades.

Indigenous rights activists in the United States say they want the new liberal democratic government in Washington to make a similar move to address the grievances of native communities who have long been subjected to abuse and discrimination.

"The U.S. [should] become a resolute supporter of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples," argued James Polk, who writes for Foreign Policy in Focus, a progressive periodical published by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington.

"It’s a comprehensive document that affirms that indigenous peoples are equal to all other peoples, and that, in the exercise of their rights, they should be free from their discrimination," he added.

The declaration reflects growing concerns of aboriginal communities about the continued exploitation of their resources and suppression of their cultural vales and practices by commercial concerns and governments that are alien to their cultures.

According to many scientists, the traditional knowledge and cooperation of indigenous communities are vital elements in the global fight against climate change and loss of biodiversity.

During his election campaign, President Obama repeatedly said that he cared about the issues facing Native American communities and insisted that they could trust him – pledges that are now being watched closely.

As [he] reached out to new voter blocs last summer, Obama made a campaign stop at an Indian reservation in Montana, where he told the audience, that, as an African American, he identified with their struggles.

"I know what it’s like to not have always been respected or to have been ignored and I know what it’s like to struggle and that’s how I think many of you understand what’s happened here on the reservation," Obama said.

In his speech, Obama added: "A lot of times you have been forgotten, just like African-Americans have been forgotten or other groups in this country have been forgotten."

In the Nov. 4 presidential elections, a vast majority of Native people voted for Obama, according to Frank LaMere of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, who led the American Indian delegation to the Democratic Convention.

On the campaign trail in Montana, Obama was adopted as an honourary member of the Crow Tribe, a ceremony that natives say is reserved for special guests. On that occasion, he was given a new name, "Barack Black Eagle."

Before Obama became the first-ever non-white president of the United States, the country faced scathing criticism from a Geneva-based U.N. rights body for its treatment of the indigenous communities and objectionable use of their traditional lands and resources.

In March 2006 and again in 2008, a panel of U.S. experts analysed the U.S. government’s treatment of indigenous citizens and ruled that it was guilty of racial discrimination.

Canada, another settler-nation founded on the indigenous territories in North America, has also been scolded by the U.N. Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) for its abusive and discriminatory treatment of acts of native communities.

The right-wing government in Ottawa continues to justify its current policies towards the native population as just and fair with no indication whatsoever of a willingness to sign the U.N. document on indigenous peoples’ rights.

In the United States, there appears to be some signs of policy shift with regard to the U.S. government’s relations with the American Indian communities. Some representatives of indigenous tribes are currently working with Obama as advisors.

However, it remains unclear when and if the Obama administration would sign the declaration. "I can’t comment further," said Ventrell about the outcome of discussions on possible U.S. support.
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Australia Adopts UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights: U.S., Canada, and New Zealand More Isolated

Australia backs UN declaration on indigenous rights

Last Updated: Friday, April 3, 2009 2:09 PM ET
CBC News

The Australian government has endorsed a United Nations declaration that recognizes the rights of indigenous people to their own culture, institutions and spiritual traditions.

Friday's endorsement of the non-binding declaration on the rights of the world's more than 370 million indigenous peoples reverses a position taken by Australia's previous conservative government.

Australia was one of four countries to reject the declaration adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2007, the others being Canada, New Zealand and the United States.

"We do this in the spirit of resetting the relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians and building trust," Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said.

In one of his first acts after taking office last year, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd offered a formal apology to Australia's Aborigines for past government injustices, a gesture that his predecessor John Howard had resisted for years.

At the time, some Aborigines said the apology should have been accompanied with compensation for their suffering.

'Canada … even more isolated'

Still, indigenous leader Tom Calma on Friday described Macklin's statement as a milestone.

"This declaration gives us the scaffolding we need for our efforts to reject forever a passive acceptance of the brutal fact that indigenous Australians are dying on average about 17 years earlier than non-indigenous Australians," he said in a statement.

The Assembly of the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador said it's "thrilled" by Australian's decision to join the 143 countries that have supported the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

With this additional support for the declaration, "Canada finds itself in an even more isolated position," the group said in a statement.

Australia's former conservative government had argued the declaration could give unfair advantage to Aborigines and override Australian law. Canada and the U.S. voiced similar concerns.

With files from the Associated Press

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Dodson Says Australia Set to Sign UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples as Early as Last Two Weeks of May

Australia will sign UN charter on indigenous rights: Dodson
Joel Gibson Indigenous Affairs Reporter

The Sydney Morning Herald
March 12, 2009

AUSTRALIA could reverse its position on a United Nations charter of indigenous rights as early as May, the Australian of the Year, Professor Mick Dodson, says.

The Howard government had misgivings that the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples would elevate customary law above Western law and conflict with aspects of government policy. But it is Rudd Government policy to support the declaration and it has been looking for a way to reconcile support with its own approach to indigenous affairs.

The declaration, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2007 after more than two decades of drafting, outlines the rights of an estimated 370 million indigenous people around the world.

Only Australia, the US, New Zealand and Canada voted against it.

The shadow attorney-general, Senator George Brandis, has warned that the declaration includes provisions "that go well beyond the rights recognised in Australian domestic law".

He said it conferred the right to seek compensation for land taken without permission and to veto projects affecting land, without providing recognition for the rights of third parties.

The Northern Territory intervention, which the Rudd Government will alter in the second half of this year, breaches about half of the charter's 46 articles, according to Claire Smith, an intervention critic and academic at Flinders University.

Professor Dodson said an announcement was imminent, in an interview published yesterday. "The Labor Party's politics has always been to support the declaration, to endorse the declaration. They're going to do that and it may be as soon as the next meeting of the Permanent Forum which will be at the UN headquarters in New York City in the last two weeks of May."

But he remained concerned that the Government's support would be watered down by "too many riders or qualifications or explanatory statements".

Yesterday the Government would say only that it supported the declaration's underlying principles and was "consulting with indigenous organisations, State and Territory governments and other key stakeholders on an appropriate public statement to reflect this".

Meanwhile, the United Nations has agreed to investigate a complaint against the intervention. The case, which claims the intervention is racially discriminatory, is being run by lawyers including George Newhouse on behalf of a group in the NT.
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Twelve Months of Broken Promises Since Rudd's Apology to the Stolen Generations

Australia Day: a racist celebration

By Simon Butler
Source: Green Left Online, 4 February 2009

Members of Tasmania's Aboriginal community didn't mince their words about how they feel about the celebration of Australia Day.

"You stole our land, you stole our rights and we won't celebrate invasion day", the protesters chanted as they marched through the streets of Hobart. Symbolically, they carried three coffins with them to the steps of the state parliament on January 26.

The following day, the Hobart Mercury reported that the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre state secretary, Nala Mansell-McKenna, told the crowd that celebrating Australia Day on January 26 was undeniably racist.

She compared the offence many Indigenous people feel regarding Australia Day to the imaginable offence were Aboriginals to "celebrate" on Anzac Day.

According to the Mercury Mansell-McKenna said: "There can never be reconciliation between white and Aboriginal Australians while Australia Day is celebrated on January 26 … To us it marks the start of assimilation, land theft, murder, poisoning and death — how can any reasonable person celebrate that?"

Just minutes after he became the 2009 Australian of the Year, Aboriginal leader Mick Dodson used his first public address to also criticise the celebration of Australia Day. He said that for many Aboriginals January 26 is not a day for celebration but "a day of mourning" and "the day in which our world came crashing down".

Australia Day is marked as Invasion Day or Survival Day by many Aboriginal Australians and their supporters, Dodson pointed out. He called for a "national conversation" about changing the day to a more appropriate date. He also said the issue of compensation to the Stolen Generations still needs to be addressed — an option already dismissed by the federal ALP government.

The government hurried to rule out any idea of changes to Australia Day. "To our Indigenous leaders, and those who call for a change to our national day, let me say a simple, respectful but straightforward no", said PM Kevin Rudd on January 26, in reply to Dodson's speech.

A racist celebration

Worldwide, Australia is one of only two countries colonised by Europeans that celebrate its national day on the anniversary of white settlement. The other country is the apartheid state of Israel, whose national day coincides with the commencement of Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in 1948.

Australia has little to be proud of in maintaining January 26 as a national holiday. It marks the beginning of a brutal invasion and genocide carried out against the original inhabitants.

For decades, Australian authorities subjected Indigenous people to systematic discrimination and the theft of their land. These policies were considered justified on the patronising and racist assumption that Aboriginal people constituted an inferior, dying race.

In 1901, attorney-general and future prime minister Alfred Deakin even called for Aboriginals subjected to Australia's apartheid-like laws to be grateful: "if [Aboriginals] be a dying race, let us hope that in their last hours they will be able to recognise not simply the justice, but the generosity of the treatment which the white race, who are dispossessing them and entering into their heritage, are according them."

Abandoning January 26 as a national celebration would be a progressive step — part of a bigger campaign for full equality and justice for Australia's Indigenous people.

The racism associated with Australia Day is not only a thing of the past. It also plays a role in stoking racist nationalism among white Australians today. This year, hundreds of white youth rampaged in the Sydney suburb of Manly on January 26, targeting non-white shopkeepers, in their own, appalling assertion of "Aussie pride".

AAP's Justin Vallejo reported that the white rioters attacked and injured an 18-year-old Asian woman, a Sikh taxi driver and an Asian shopkeeper in scenes that had "the potential to resemble Cronulla Beach in 2005".

Nina Burridge, an academic at the University of Technology, witnessed the Manly riots. She ridiculed police suggestions that racism was not a factor in the rampage, telling the January 27 Sydney Morning Herald there was definitely "an underlying element of racism dressed up as nationalism".

In the weeks after the racist Cronulla riots in 2005 — involving hundreds of white Australians rampaging through the suburb indiscriminately attacking non-whites — the ABC's 7.30 Report interviewed some of the participants.

Being part of riots "was better than Australia Day", said one unrepentant racist. "I went home at 10 o'clock at night and my eyes were like this. I had the best time of my life. Not because we were there fighting Lebos, but just the atmosphere, you know. Everyone has had enough of them."

Broken promises

Along with its racist and nationalist associations, there is a further reason why the ALP government should move Australia Day. It was one of the election promises made at its 2007 national convention. The 2004 convention had also adopted this policy.

Chris Graham, from the National Indigenous Times, explained in a January 22 editorial that the ALP went into the 2007 election with a policy of implementing the recommendations of a report from the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. One of those recommendations is to move Australia Day to a less offensive day.

Graham labelled Rudd's refusal to implement his own party's policy as consistent with his entire first year in office, "which is littered with broken promises to Aboriginal people". He listed some of these broken promises.

Before the election, Labor promised to boost funding to Aboriginal legal aid but actually cut funding in its first budget. Labor attacked the previous government for not bridging the Indigenous health gap, yet since taking office it too has failed to make up the funding shortfall.

In opposition, the ALP promised to revitalise Indigenous languages and endorse the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In government, it has backed away from both of these things.

Labor professed to be critical of the Howard government's NT intervention and promised a review if elected. The review went ahead but Labor simply ignored the major recommendations: the intervention continues largely unchanged.

Rudd has also broken a pre-election pledge to respond comprehensively to the Bringing Them Home report into the Stolen Generations. A major recommendation of the report was compensation, yet as PM, Rudd has ruled out any compensation scheme.

On February 13, it will be 12 months since Rudd made the moving apology to the Stolen Generations, raising hopes of real change among many. The reality of his government's record since then led Graham to conclude: "Labor is the party that says one thing, and does another. It is the party that pretends to be the friend of the blackfella, but stabs him the back regardless of whether or not he's looking."

Alternatives

According to the January 27 NIT, Dodson has proposed February 13 — the anniversary of the apology — as one alternative date for Australia's national day. Mansell-McKenna has also raised the idea of shifting the holiday to that day.

Queensland Aboriginal leader and Socialist Alliance member Sam Watson also supports the call to change the date of Australia Day. According to another January 27 NIT report Watson argued: "It needs to be [changed] because January 26 is only the day in 1788 when the First Fleet arrived to set up the colony of New South Wales. It's got nothing to do with Aboriginal people or the nation of Australia as it stands today."

Watson's suggestion for an alternative date was June 3 — the day the Mabo decision recognising native title was handed down in 1992.

The January 27 Mercury also reported Tasmanian Aboriginal leader Michael Mansell has a third alternative proposal for moving Australia Day — the day should coincide with the future date when the government finally signs a treaty with Aboriginal people.

Another view is held by South Australian Aboriginal elder Aunty Josi Agius who argued that she doesn't believe Australia Day should be changed, but felt strongly that the government still had to do more to recognise the struggle of Indigenous people.

According to ABC Online, Aunty Josi said, "Australia Day is good for non-Aboriginal people and for us it's our survival day. Another day for Aboriginal people should be brought in, or the government should do something to recognise us."

Debate and discussion within and without the Indigenous community will widen in the context of Dodson's remarks. But this discussion must be combined with ongoing campaigns in solidarity with Indigenous people, taking up government attacks.

Watson told the ABC on January 26 that he hoped Dodson would continue to use his position to speak out for Indigenous rights. Many others will also need to speak out and take action.

Despite the apology, despite the rhetoric, despite the awarding of Australian of the Year to an Aboriginal leader … the Rudd government is systematically attacking the rights and past gains of Indigenous people.
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Copyright 2009 Simon Butler

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Posted By Perry Chesnut, Editor NRN to Native Rights News at 2/03/2009 10:51:00 AM

NWT High Court Denies Aboriginal Land Claims and Upholds NT Intervention Program

Violent scenes at High Court after land rights decision

Originally published in WAtoday.com.au (02-02-09)

Protesters stormed inside the High Court and clashed with police after the court dismissed a challenge against the federal intervention into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities.

Dozens of anti-intervention protesters, both indigenous and non-indigenous, pushed through the court's front doors minutes after it rejected the case brought by traditional owners from the Arnhem Land community of Maningrida.

Carrying banners and clapping, the protesters chanted, "Always was, always will be Aboriginal land," as they moved into the court's main foyer.

Security guards tried to prevent the protesters from entering the building but were quickly overwhelmed.

Police appeared on the scene soon after, triggering scuffles as they tried to force the protesters back outside.

After a tense half-hour stand-off, the protesters took their demonstration to the streets of Canberra.

Under the NT intervention program, launched by the Howard government in a bid to tackle child sexual abuse, the commonwealth took control of township leases, abolished the permit system, introduced welfare restrictions, boosted police numbers and imposed alcohol and pornography bans.

Maningrida traditional owners Reggie Wurridjal and Joy Garlbin took on the commonwealth over its compulsory five-year takeover of their land.

The land, measuring 10.456 square kilometres, includes a township, four sacred sites, an outstation, a sand quarry, a billabong and a ceremonial site.
The elders, along with the Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation, argued the commonwealth failed to acquire the land on "just terms" as required by the constitution.

But the court, by a six to one majority, rejected their argument, saying the laws underpinning the intervention properly provided for compensation for Aboriginal organisations and people.

Retiring Justice Michael Kirby, in his final judgment in the court, dissented, arguing the case should be sent to trial.

"The law of Australia owes the Aboriginal claimants nothing less," he said.

A majority of justices also overruled a 1969 High Court decision which held that the just terms requirement in section 51 of the constitution did not apply to laws made by the commonwealth for the governing of the NT and ACT.


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Posted By Perry Chesnut, Editor to Native Rights News at 2/03/2009 06:52:00 AM

Australia Intends to Sign UN Indigenous Rights Declaration

Govt still intends to sign indigenous rights declaration
9th December 2008, 15:30 WST

The federal government has indicated it still intends to endorse a United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous people, after failing to fulfil the election promise in its first year.

Australia was one of just four countries to vote against the non-binding UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples when the General Assembly adopted it in September 2007.

The Howard government refused to support the declaration, which sets out the rights of the world’s estimated 370 million indigenous people, claiming it would elevate customary law above national law.

At the time, Labor said it would endorse the declaration, but has failed to do so in its first 12 months in office.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland on Tuesday said the government still supported the underlying principles of the declaration.

“We are consulting with indigenous organisations and other key stakeholders on an appropriate statement to reflect this,” Mr McClelland said in the inaugural Evatt Annual Lecture in Sydney.

“Without a doubt, the biggest and most pressing human rights challenge we face is the past failures in the treatment of indigenous Australians.”

CANBERRA AAP
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